As USAID and the State Department face 2.6 billion dollars in cuts and an estimated 5.3 percent decrease in US development assistance, organizations are beginning to downsize many of their projects and rethinking their strategies and programs. New roles and new strategies need to come into effect in order to keep the world’s most vulnerable with food, medicine, education, and the tools to arrive at a sustainable livelihood.
$400 million in cuts to global health, $152.4 million to humanitarian aid, and $70 million in food aid results in serious questions. How is government-led foreign aid supposed to cope with such numbers? And can a new public-private partnership step in and become the new model for foreign aid and corporate responsibility?
“New approaches to eradicating extreme poverty and inequity that include the private sector in partnership with governments and NGO’s hold real promise for sustainable solution” says Helen D. Gayle of CARE USA. The Center for Strategic and International Studies also released a new report with similar proposals for a new development strategy titled “Our Shared Opportunity: A Vision for Global Prosperity.” It highlighted three key points to this new partnership: (1) developing private sector-led, broad based economic growth by creating a holistic constituency between government, the public, and businesses on economic growth and job creation as the way to reduce poverty overseas. (2) aligning US development with the private sector, by setting targets to creating partnerships, streamlining and simplifying the process of creating the partnerships, and using US business operations to train and enhance local workforce and companies; and (3) promoting trade and investment, a double bottom line of meeting profitability and social development, and investing in countries with ambitious business reform.
Peter Davis, of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), emphasized that of the many countries that have been successful in climbing out of poverty, the private sector has driven the process. Studies by the UN in India and China found that increase in exports led to 26 million jobs and 55 billion in additional incomes.
Public-private partnerships could prove to be efficacious, but the building of strong civil societies, and possibly the creation of new ones in developing countries, will be critical to their success. For such partnerships to work, there needs to be complete procedural transparency and an institutional commitment to corporate responsibility. A strong committed civil society can help ensure that the partners adhere to a new sense of global responsibility, and will guarantee benefits are distributed fairly to the world’s neediest populations.
New government strategies to build strong partnerships with the private sector will become a strategic opportunity for the twenty-first century. Successful aid and successful partnerships will lead to productive foreign policy, economic progress, and national security, all while strengthening new markets and continuing the vital role that the US has played in development.
Andres D Quinche 